Welcome to INTERCAMBIOS !, a dynamic space at Destinos Festival where workshops, seminars, and pláticas come together to inspire conversation, creativity, and collaboration.
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This workshop will be hosted in English and will be led by Jesús I. Valles.
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Based on the words of Texas-based activist, Vanessa Rodriguez, this workshop will ask participants to re-visit two artifacts: a document they feel has shaped their life, and an artifact that they feel has given them strength or courage. We will generate writing about these artifacts with the goal of creating a spoken word poem or monologue for performance. The focus of our workshop will be the writing of this new text. No previous writing or performing experience is necessary.
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Perfect for: Students, professionals and anyone else interested in writing for performance or writing for performance or the spoken word.
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Content:
We will be reading poems written by Noor Hindi, Brittany Rogers, and Marcelo Hernandez Castillo during our workshop, and move through various writing prompts over the course of our two hours (with small breaks throughout).
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Jesús I. Valles (they/them) is a queer Mexican immigrant writer-performer from Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua/El Paso, Texas. Their poems have been featured in the anthologies Here to Stay, Somewhere We Are Human, and The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext, as well as New Republic, Tin House, [PANK], Adroit Journal, the Slowdown podcast, and Code Switch. Valles is the winner of a 2025 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting International Award, the 2023 Yale Drama Series (Bathhouse.pptx), and the 2022 Kernodle Playwriting Prize (a river, its mouths).
